According to the thread in question ... "As the links above show, Wikileaks has historically used hashes for encrypted files (since 2010)" - Assange said in an interview with John Pilger Pilger: The people in the United States would like to know does this file contain info about Hillary Clinton? Assange: Well lately I heard a lot of threats from US official and this might be the reason for it,but the answer to your question is yes encrypted file with a dead man’s switch and it is about Hillary Clinton but also it contains info for much more government official around the world! The earlier encrypted files were an insurance policy that presumably contain enough damaging information to prevent whoever they are about from killing Assange and other members of wikileaks. Assange is said to have set up a mechanism where if he dies unexpectedly the keys to decrypt those files will be released. The initial speculation was that those hashes were the signal to release they keys to decrypt the previously released encrypted insurance files. Again from that thread "Using a hash for a decrypted file could put readers in danger as it forces them to open a potentially malicious file in order to verify if its contents are real. Generating hashes from encrypted files is standard, practical and safe." Why do you think they would change the way they used the hashes to a system where anyone who has the encrypted files can verify them to a system where literally no-one except those people with the decryption keys can verify the newly released encrypted files. It doesn't make any sense to me. I'm as skeptical as hell about conspiracy theories but this is very strange. FWIW, the hashes are for unencrypted files, they aren't supposed to match the encrypted files.